


Five Times Matt Learnt About the Avengers and One Time They Learnt About Him

by Noxnoctisanima



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Yuletide 2012, five times fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noxnoctisanima/pseuds/Noxnoctisanima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Avengers are ghosts, rumours of the online world and Matt sees them there, until they start invading his real life too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Matt Learnt About the Avengers and One Time They Learnt About Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lorax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts).



1.  
  
Matt had always heard the rumours online, about people with strange powers and aliens and shit and he’d passed it off as crackpots, everyone knew that the real worry wasn’t some fantasy enemy, it was their own government and society. Sometimes though, even Matt had problems identifying where the photoshop ended and the stock picture started.  
  
This one was really stumping him, it was a picture of giant metal and fire thing that he was pretty sure he’d seen in one of the shittier urban fantasy games around, there was also a guy in one of the coolest cosplay outfits ever literally floating in front of it.  
  
Now there are some pretty obvious signs that something is photoshopped, the stupider ones don’t bother to even delete the meta data and for everything else when you get deep enough into the code you can almost always find something out of place.  
  
Now Matt’s speciality is math based security and he’s immodest enough to admit he’s one of the best around and he’s not too shabby at other things either. He’s also compulsively inclined towards problem solving so there’s very little chance he’s going to stop before he figures out how the fuck someone has created an image this good.  
  
He passed out thirty six hours later when red bull and loud music finally failed him and he collapsed in the middle of a line of code, face writing ‘D’s until he woke up wrecked and mouth dry nine hours later. And his only conclusions were that unless someone was far trickier than he was (unlikely) it hadn’t actually been digitally altered.  
  
Huh, Matt didn’t think anyone bothered faking things in real life any more but it was nice to see someone being inventive.  
  
  
2.  
  
Matt spent a lot of time online after the whole Fire Sale thing, his knee made movement a very bad idea and he was just thankful the Powers That Be had decided his action hero antics overruled his accidental culpability in terrorism.  
  
He didn’t have a lot of work to do, everyone was still mopping up, it’d be a few more weeks before the practicalities were sorted and people remembered that hackers had nearly crippled the country, until then Matt was enjoying his time off. He’d have to get a new set-up first anyway.  
  
His apartment was a complete write off, he’d managed to salvage a few smoke damaged clothes and an one of his older laptops, well when he said ‘he’ he really meant Lucy who had laughed in his face and arranged his life to her standards. Which is why he was cruising around the web on a three year old laptop in John McClane’s spare bedroom.  
There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of things he could do when his computer was as obsolete as this one but basic web browsing? Easy.  
  
The IRC channels were depressingly empty and Matt desperately hoped that it was evidence of the continuing blackouts and not how many of his anonymous friends were real world pictures on Bowman’s wall.  
  
Message boards only held his attention for so long, it wasn’t as interesting to read about a conspiracy when you knew the truth and just couldn’t tell others about it. Though he did wonder how many others must have felt like this, staring at the false rumours and stupid speculation and not able to set them straight.  
  
He checked his emails, spam and a couple of ‘WHAT THE FUCK MAN?’ messages sent during the Firesale, but not enough to keep his interest while bedridden.  
  
He ended up skimming through ebay and a few of the more obscure trading sites, wincing at the amount it was going to cost to replace his collection, even if such a thing was possible, a few of his items were one of a kind. He’d had a particularly rare collection of Captain America trading cards in sleeves in mint condition. He’d loved Captain America since he was a kid, he was one of the few ‘superheroes’ that survived the cynical realisation of his teens that they were all performers and media stooges.    
  
He’d been crushed when Bobby Cross had shouted at him in the playground that his precious superheroes were fakes and he’d thrown out much of his collection but he just couldn’t do it to Captain America, there was something real about him.  
  
  
3.  
  
Now when he left hospital Matt had this idea that he would settle back down into a completely normal, boring life and leave all the dare doing and adrenaline behind him. But he realised pretty quickly that while logically that was what he was hoping for the rest of him had actually really liked that adrenaline and would like to keep getting it thanks.  
  
He’d felt it first in the restlessness after leaving hospital, like he had lost his ability to sit day after day in front of a screen. He’d been twitchy and frustrated and just plain bored. The second one wasn’t restlessness but it was an excellent example of his subconscious’ death wish.  
  
He had a crush on McClane, a full blown, want to get into your pants crush and apparently a death wish. As if considering what Lucy would look like naked wasn’t dangerous enough he had to latch onto the only McClane more dangerous to fantasise about, the one who he lives with who is perfectly happy to shoot people.      
  
These were both apparent symptoms of the slow degrading of his common sense, the final proof being that he was actually considering this offer.  
  
Matt has always had a very healthy suspicion of the government and especially of shady men in suits who belong to alphabet soup agencies. Agent Coulson of the dark sunglasses and impenetrable look is the epitome of them all.  
  
Which is why it is so surprising that Matt found himself not saying no the moment Coulson made his offer. It’s pretty shiny, big pay packet, great equipment and a somewhat terrifying health plan (seriously what are they expecting the job to entail when the options for long term care and prosthetic limbs are listed before dental) which should be all the more reason to turn it down (really, really suspiciously good offer) and then they pay the patriotism card.  
  
Look Matt is a citizen of the internet more than he has ever been of America with its shitty human rights record and laughable election system but something of McClane has obviously rubbed off on him (sadly not literally) because appealing to his patriotism actually seems to be working.  
  
It probably helps that Coulson doesn’t seem particularly enamoured with the whole patriotism thing either and eventually just stares at him with his creepy blank face.  
  
“Look, I know you don’t trust the government, your blog posts alone have made that abundantly clear.” Seriously, how the fuck did he find them anyway? “But you have proved not only your exceptional skill but your ability to use that skill when everything is going to hell around you. That is rare Mr Farrell and while I cannot explain more without a solid commitment I can assure you that we are the good guys.”  
  
Matt says yes, which he still thinks has more to do with wanting McClane’s dick than any other factor.  
  
  
4.  
  
The first thing Matt realised about working for SHIELD was that as awesome as Coulson might have been, government stooges were still dicks, the second was that Natasha Romonov was apparently actually a real person and not a terrifying underground meme.  
  
She introduced herself with a smile that said staring at my boobs may be immediately satisfying but I have found a way to transmit poison visually and you will die. Matt took this to heart, he may be dreaming more of bald heads and strong arms lately but boobs were a pretty powerful distraction.  
  
But meeting frightening assassins aside his first few days at SHIELD were pretty normal for integrating into an office (something Matt had done once and then vowed never to do again, why did he never listen to himself?) HR and computer logins and some fairly over the top evacuation procedures (he hadn’t asked why there were procedures involving parachutes, frankly he didn’t want to know). He went to work and came home and felt like a shit for being all evasive with McClane and then went in to do it all over again. He felt so much worse because McClane was still on desk duty for his injuries and the higher ups were making noises about keeping him there, and if it was bad enough that McClane mentioned it to him Matt figured he could pretty much kiss the field goodbye. He could feel McClane watch him as they ate the take out of the day on the couch, suspicious and considering, a bored cop roommate was a terrible combination with a top secret job and an even more secret crush.  
  
Really when he put all that together Matt should have been less surprised when a week later he found himself being introduced to one of the new agents and found McClane grinning back at him.  
  


5.  
  
So Matt is aware that maybe he got a few things about superheros wrong, a little bit, whatever, it’s not his fault that government agencies were being as secretive as he had always expected of them. Though at least he doesn’t have to feel so conflicted about this information when Tony Stark (Tony fucking Stark) outs himself as Iron Man on national television.  
  
Look Matt isn’t usually one for ridiculous, over the top celebrities but there is something about a man who can build radical new technologies in a cave which he has to admire. He is self aware enough to realise that this comes from the same place as his increasingly ridiculous crush on McClane, he’d always known he had a thing for competency but he never figured it would ever link up with a thing for violence.  
  
So it’s not fair for the universe to confront him with Stark at 7.45 on his Monday morning when he’s not yet had his first Redbull (McClane had been waging a not so subtle war against them since Matt moved in, throwing them out as fast as Matt could buy them. His record for keeping one in the fridge was twenty five minutes and he hadn’t managed much better when hiding them places, McClane was like a fucking bloodhound for the stuff). Not that Stark looked a lot better than he did, dark circles and a crumpled suit that smelled of alcohol, perfume and motor oil.  
  
“You.” Stark points lazily with his orange douche-glasses, there’s a smear of grease high on his cheek. Matt is very impressed by his ability not to stupidly look over his shoulder to see if anyone is behind him.  
  
“Yes Mr Stark?” He can see the mild grimace Stark makes when being referred to as ‘Mr’, Matt would have thought he’d be used to it by now.     
  
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that one of you government code monkeys actually knows how to program and can assist me in finding a decent base code for a mutating algorithm, save me from spending another 12 hours writing one.”    
  
“Actually, I have one if you’d like to take a look at it.” There is a moment where Matt hesitates because he’s not sure there is anything more terrifying than having your code examined by one of the most brilliant inventors in American history but there’s also a low voice in the back of his mind that tells him to grow some balls.  
  
Stark cocks his eyebrow at him and gestures in a ‘lead the way’ fashion towards the cubicles.  
  
Stark lurks behind him quite terrifyingly as he negotiates his way through his start up security. It takes a long five minutes, something he’d never noticed when it was just him and his second (or third) Redbull of the day. Finally he’s in the file folder and he stands up, letting Stark sit down to examine the code.  
  
Stark is incredibly focused and Matt can’t help but consider what the focus would be like trained on him but Matt’s a one frightening man-crush at a time kind of guy and McClane’s already filled his embarrassing crush/pining quota.  
  
Speak of the devil or whatever the old saying was, McClane appears in the doorway, coffee cups in hand. His problem wasn’t with caffeine, it was what he called ‘that horrible fake syrup shit’ and he brought Matt coffee every morning. Horrible, black, institutional coffee that Matt could taste the bureaucratic purchasing in, but coffee nonetheless. He raised one eyebrow at Matt, his eyes flicking to Stark and back, his whole face questioning. Matt tried to return a look that said ‘A genius who programed, in his spare time, an AI that passed the Turing Test is looking at my code.’ he’s not sure how well it worked though, faces were complicated.  
  
‘Not bad kid.” Matt had been so focused on McClane that Stark’s voice made him jump. “A couple of things i’ll have to change but that’s a difference in application not a flaw in the programming.” His look was assessing. “You ever think about doing this full time? Stark Industries needs all the decent programmers it can get.”  
  
Matt gaped at him, it was his dream job offered on a platter, Stark employees were like the Google of the science sector but instead of scooters and foosball tables they had state of the art labs and equipment. Except S.H.I.E.L.D might be largely full of douches but the people that really mattered were pretty amazing and Matt was actually doing something here, not designing a new operating system (even though he knows he has one in him that would kick Android and iOS’s asses).  
  
“He’s already got a job.” Oh yeah, and there’s that, he doesn’t see Stark Industries having many positions for ex-NYPD officers that are anything more than glorified security and Matt is pathetically attached to the man.  
  
McClane is standing right behind him now, scowling at Stark. For his part Stark smirks knowingly at him and throws and catches the flashdrive he pulls from the computer.  
“I’m sure he has.” His smirk is aimed at McClane but there’s still a shadow of it when he turns back to Matt. “Offer’s open whenever you’re interested, it was nice to meet you anonymous S.H.I.E.L.D flunky, and you Mr Farrell.”  
  
He breezes out of the room, somehow shedding at least 12 hours of his sleeplessness, throwing the flash drive up and down.  
  
Matt just accepted his coffee and stared.  
  
  
1.  
  
Clint liked Dr Banner’s lab, it was all open glass and spectacular sight lines over some of the more minion-like offices. S.H.I.E.L.D obviously wanted to give him an escape route that wasn’t straight through crowded hallways and lab space and Banner was completely okay with that.  
  
He found a perch high up in a corner with a good view of the IT cubicles because he might not be the most educated man but the sum total of his experience told him that the most dangerous and in danger people weren’t the field agents, it was the geeks.  
  
Banner was a bit freaked out at first, Clint’s pretty sure he thought Clint was there to watch him and it took two weeks of careful ignoring before he relaxed but Clint understood, he knew what it was like not to be trusted for something he couldn’t control.  
  
Clint liked watching people, it’s more than his job, he actually enjoys it, watching people and trying to figure out who they are and what they’re doing. He’s been up here for over a month and he’s started developing favourites. There’s ironic tie guy who seems to come to work solely to steal office supplies, and Clint is impressed with the sheer volume he manages to take out with him every day. There’s perpetual monogamy girl who has a different boyfriend (and thus sappy picture on her desktop) at least twice a month and then there’s floppy haired guy and his bald friend.  
  
They weren’t sleeping together but it was obvious to anyone with eyes that they wanted to. Bald guy worked somewhere else in the building but he turned up every morning with two coffees and bucket loads of possessive posturing. It certainly wasn’t one sided though, floppy haired guy flipped between terrified and smitten.  
  
They were that at hilarious place where both people think the other one is uninterested and feel both awkward and terrified.  
  
Floppy haired guy seemed actually frightened for his physical safety and flinched whenever he forgot himself and stared too long but from what Clint had seen he didn’t have anything to worry about.  
  
People watching was more than a hobby for him, it was a vital survival skill and he particularly liked watching couples or infatuated people, they all thought their secret love was so unique and different but really they all went through the same phases.  
  
Phase 1: Awkward half glances - an attraction is just starting to build but they’re just not quite sure yet and keep throwing glances at the object of their affection to help make a decision. Usually characterised by spending more time close to their new focus but a decrease in actual verbal or physical contact.  
  
Phase 2a: Acknowledgement of attraction (confident)- those who are confident in their ability to draw the attention of their focus often only briefly inhabit this stage, quickly moving onto Stage 3.  
  
Phase 2b: Acknowledgement of attraction (non-confident) - for those who are not confident as to their ability to draw or hold the attention of their focus this is often a very anxious stage where one will often struggle with the seeming difficulty of their obstacles. Common obstacles include: social status, age, attractiveness, sexual orientation and pre existing partner. Usually characterised by continued close proximity to focus, showing affection through small tokens (cups of coffee, flattery, etc) and general awkwardness.  
  
Phase 3: Growing knowledge of focus and decision as to whether to pursue -  Most of those who fell into Phase 2a also only inhabit this Phase for a short time, choosing to pursue their focus with little consideration. Those who fell into Phase 2b take significantly longer - sometimes up to years - without moving on from this Phase. Characterised by a growing knowledge of the focus, sometimes a growing closeness and proto-declarations of intent.  
  
Phase 4: A declaration is made - A declaration of affection is made and the focus either responds or does not. Results in either acceptance and happiness or rejection, embarrassment and pining.  
  
  
Sadly Clint missed Baldy and Floppy’s Phase 1, he always liked the challenge of spotting it. It took skill to identify the signs of attraction when even the person involved is unsure of their feelings. They hadn’t yet joined S.H.I.E.L.D though and thus he missed it. They arrived smack in the middle of Phase 2b, showing all the classic signs - gifts of coffee, frequent visits, lingering glances - they were textbook. He wouldn’t have expected such hesitance from Baldy, he looked like the kind of guy who did what he wanted and just hoped for the best. But the faded ring tan on his left hand and the more than a decade age gap were more than enough reason even without the probable midlife sexuality crisis. He wasn’t unsure though, just...cautious and maybe a little frightened.  
  
Floppy was less unsure about his feelings and more terrified about Baldy’s. Clint didn’t blame him, to anyone without excellent observational skills Blady was straight, dangerous and unapproachable and something Floppy did not have was good people skills.  
  
They eventually moved into Stage 3 but they looked ready to settle in for the foreseeable future. Clint watched them for weeks, beginning to despair as to whether they’d ever get their act together or whether he’d have to watch them awkwardly pine and flirt forever.  
  
Then suddenly, without any warning they jumped through Phase 4 and into a relationship. They thought they were being subtle, but to Clint they may as well have been wearing a sign with the words ‘We’re fucking’ written on it. They stood too close, smiling all the time and floppy stopped flinching when he looked too long at Baldy, he was also limping so it must have been a very good declaration of intent.  
  
He was surprised to realise that it wasn’t Baldy who had made the first move, there was something in the confidence of Floppy that identified him as the initiator. He was willing to bet this bow that it was an unplanned outburst, he probably was utterly surprised when Baldy returned his feelings.  
  
Clint watched Baldy’s hand linger on Floppy’s back before he left the cubicle. God he loved being right.  
  



End file.
